October 13, 2007

Atttorney-Client "Crossed Lines"

by emptywheel

What a surprise! An attorney representing a Gitmo detainee and someone in Afghanistan has found "crossed lines" in his telephone connection (h/t scout prime).

A law firm that represents clients at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan is warning its Vermont clients
that it believes the federal government has been monitoring its phones
and computer system.

[snip]

A Verizon Vermont technician who investigated
problems with Gensburg’s phone last month found crossed lines, but
didn’t explain what caused the problem, Sleigh said. A forensic
examination of Gensburg’s computer found an application that disabled
all security software and would have given someone access to all
information on the computer, Sleigh said.

“We’ve been told by
our expert that nothing on their machines are confidential,” Sleigh
said. “We are continuing to see who, what, when and how this infection
was installed on my client’s computer.”

Sleigh said it could be a routine infection introduced into the machine by e-mail.

“Given
the phone situation, a number of another anomalies we’ve observed over
time... we think we have legitimate cause for concern,” Sleigh said.

Okay. I was joking. I'm not surprised, not in the least. But you think maybe those Senators thinking of giving the telecoms immunity for doing stuff like this might consider what they're doing to the principle of attorney-client privilege?

Anatomy of a smear
Posted October 12th, 2007
After a week-long discussion of the right-wing smear of 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family, Paul Krugman delivers not only an amazing summary of the facts, but a concise summary of the broader problem.

All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.

Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.

"Amazing summary of the facts"? Ok. Of course, Wheeler's treatment was far more thorough and at a time when the MSM could not or would not follow the story. It included descriptions of the manipulations and deceits, the methods, players, results, and impact of these methods on government policy-making. Yes, Krugman is good but when it comes to anatomy of deceits and smears, no one holds a candle to Wheeler.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a temporary restraining order [10/11] with the court in CREW v. Executive Office of the President, the lawsuit in which CREW is challenging the White House's failure to preserve and restore millions of emails deleted from White House servers from March 2003 forward. CREW filed this motion in the face of the White House's refusal to give CREW assurances that all back-up copies of the deleted emails are being preserved. The White House has refused to identify what back-up copies of the deleted emails currently exist and has refused to commit to preserving all existing back-up copies.link

if we are so naive to think that our congress hasn't been tapped and blackmailed by dirty dick, then we deserve things like larry king trying to interpret colbert to explain to "the people"
watch idiocracy. it shows you where we are heading

**All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate.**

Neil,

That's because some of the people that Bush decided to populate the upper echelons of the Republican Party with are one step removed from thugs. They may have attended prestigious schools, have impressive degrees, and wear nice clothes, but they're really not far removed from your typical street thug. In some cases, the connections that can be made between key Republican operatives and actual organized crime are fairly tight.

It wouldn't surprise me. But I will also say that 90% of the computers I examine, including both home and small business systems, are infected with some sort of information-harvesting worm or similar malware. So it is also quite possible that this law firm's information is just being sent off to the usual information harvesters in Pakistan and Russia and not actually being tapped by the NSA.

Cranky

PS I have really enjoyed the two columns in the Wall Street Journal in the last month explaining in detail how to bypass those evil fascistic "corporate IT security jackboots". I wonder if the WSJ columnist will take responsibility for cleaning off the keylogger infections...

The National Security Agency has the authority to listen without warrants to conversations between lawyers and their clients and doctors and their patients if a connection to Al Qaeda is suspected, the Justice Department told Congress in a report released Friday.

If you were waiting for some final straw, may I humbly suggest that the elimination of attorney-client privilege, compounded by yet another signing statement -- this time accompanying the PATRIOT Act renewal -- which makes it as plain as day that this "administration" has no intention of even recognizing the power of the Legislative Branch to make "law," much less obeying it should "the Congress" insist on persisting in their silly game of make believe?

I thought they had gotten better at this. In the mid-80s, my partner was organizing a demonstration against US military adventures in Central America. One evening she said aloud she was going to call a university student. A few seconds later, the phone rang and the student was on the line. The two compared notes: neither had dialed. On both ends, the phone just rang. Guess the spooks didn't want to wait around for the conversation to start in its own time.

Obviously the present situation is much more dire. Can we claw back to the rule of law? Neither political party seems to with to try.